I've just finished Fathers and Sons, Alexander Waugh's book about his male ancestors. He begins with his great-great grandfather, also called Alexander, but known to the family as the the Brute, and then moves on to his great-grandfather, Arthur, then to his illustrious grandfather, Evelyn. I haven't got any further than that yet, but I assume that he moves on to his father, Auberon, Evelyn's eldest son.
It's a delightful read and I enjoyed it very much - he's not the greatest of writers, but his style is easy, and comfortable to read, especially last thing at night when one's feeling a bit dozy and doesn't want anything too demanding.
But why I am I reading such a book, one which has absolutely no relevance to my life, past or present? Well, it's the Waugh magic, of course,and it's fascinating to see how it was born, grew and matured. I've always loved Evelyn's books, and have grown up with them. I first started reading them in my early 20s and have never stopped. They bear repeated reading as Waugh's prose style is perfect - the book reveals that he was a stickler for correct grammar, and being a bit of a grammar fanatic myself, it's not surprising that his writing is so satisfying, like most grammatically-correct writing. Alexander's writing is OK, but unlike Evelyn's, his writing is sometimes clunky, with rather infelicitous descritopns - but, no matter - his book is highly enjoyable and readable.
Its centrepiece, surprisingly, is Arthur, Evelyn's father who turns out to be a complex and fascinating character, and possibly the source, unwittingly, of Evelyn's talent. He openly favoured his older son, Alec and Evelyn was ignored and neglected throughout his childhood. Arthur's worship of Alec was bizarre and pathological, while Evelyn was left to make his own way in life, turning out, of course to be a literary genius. Arthur was, however, a benign and benevolent character, and after his death, Evelyn wrote a wonderfully forgiving piece about him, remembering his exuberance, and love of home-grown family entertainments. Arthur was certainly the source of many of Evelyn's fictional fathers, and few of them are monsters. Charles Ryder's father's benign neglect in Brideshead Revisited is clearly based on Arthur's.
Alexander's father, Auberon, Evelyn's eldest son, had another neglected childhood and it's fascinating to see how the near delinquent became a lovely, if deeply flawed man, who somehow manged to break the cycle of bad parenting, which went all the way back to Arthur's father, also Alexander, who was known, accurately, as the Brute. Auberon inspired enormous love and affection in his children and clearly worshipped them, but not in Arthur's dysfunctional manner. So, a fascinating family memoir, and a wonderfully vivid picture of Victorian and Edwardian parenthood. Is ours an improvement? Time will tell....
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Sunday, 8 March 2009
A Beautiful Mind
I've been working my way through a pile of DVDs left here by one of my sons, and finally reached the last one, A Beautiful Mind. I knew about the film, of course; knew it came garlanded with Oscars including a Best Actor for Russell Crowe, but was never tempted to go and see it when it came out.
I was more engrossed by the film than I imagined I would be, but, as with so many Ron Howard films, it's far too long, and ultimately soft-centred. I did, however, find it far more engrossing than I thought I would and was held right up to the end, though I did get impatient in the last half hour, and found myself silently mouthing 'Oh get on with it!'.
The main talking point is Russell Crowe, who is turning into one of our great character actors. It's as if he's saying, I can do anything - bring it on, whatever it is. And he can. He's been completely convincing in everything he's done, from his debut in the masterly LA Confidential, to his wonderful performance in Master & Commander, and, of course, Gladiator. There's much else, The Insider was another high point, and there haven't been many low points, maybe A Year in Provence but we'll draw a veil over that. Anyway, he puts in a creditable effort at capturing John Nash's weirdness. He was a mathematical genius, but this gift came with the burden of paranoid schizophrenia, from which he eventually made a miraculous recovery. Crowe successfullymanages to inhabit his world view and Howard successfully conveys this with his direction, so we don't realise that Paul Bettany, who play his friend and Ed Harris, who is an entirely plausible secret agent, are entirely imaginary. But his world-picture, and his mind, starts to unravel completely as he descends into madness. Crowe conveys this gradual descent and recovery perfectly but the audience realises only gradually that there's something wrong.
The film met with mixed reviews when it was released in spite of being clear Oscar-fodder. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian slated it (predictably), for being hopelessly at odds with John Nash's real-life persona which is classic Bradshaw. He always misses the point, criticising films for not being realistic. It does have obvious problems, though, and the period detail is hopelessly messy. The hair isn't right for a start - not short enough for the men, and the women's are too casual, not remotely recognisable as a 40s look. The actors try to reproduce the quick-fire snappy delivery of 40s films, but can't do it - they should all be sentenced to watch multiple episodes of Mad Men.
So, an ultimately unsatisfactory film - I felt cross for the missed opportunity. Nash's story is actually more interesting than the one Howard tells. He was a closeted homosexual for a start, and Crowe, good as he tried to be, couldn't ultimately convey Nash's fragility convincingly enough. Inother words, a classic Ron Howard film, soft-centred, and a cop-out,
I was more engrossed by the film than I imagined I would be, but, as with so many Ron Howard films, it's far too long, and ultimately soft-centred. I did, however, find it far more engrossing than I thought I would and was held right up to the end, though I did get impatient in the last half hour, and found myself silently mouthing 'Oh get on with it!'.
The main talking point is Russell Crowe, who is turning into one of our great character actors. It's as if he's saying, I can do anything - bring it on, whatever it is. And he can. He's been completely convincing in everything he's done, from his debut in the masterly LA Confidential, to his wonderful performance in Master & Commander, and, of course, Gladiator. There's much else, The Insider was another high point, and there haven't been many low points, maybe A Year in Provence but we'll draw a veil over that. Anyway, he puts in a creditable effort at capturing John Nash's weirdness. He was a mathematical genius, but this gift came with the burden of paranoid schizophrenia, from which he eventually made a miraculous recovery. Crowe successfullymanages to inhabit his world view and Howard successfully conveys this with his direction, so we don't realise that Paul Bettany, who play his friend and Ed Harris, who is an entirely plausible secret agent, are entirely imaginary. But his world-picture, and his mind, starts to unravel completely as he descends into madness. Crowe conveys this gradual descent and recovery perfectly but the audience realises only gradually that there's something wrong.
The film met with mixed reviews when it was released in spite of being clear Oscar-fodder. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian slated it (predictably), for being hopelessly at odds with John Nash's real-life persona which is classic Bradshaw. He always misses the point, criticising films for not being realistic. It does have obvious problems, though, and the period detail is hopelessly messy. The hair isn't right for a start - not short enough for the men, and the women's are too casual, not remotely recognisable as a 40s look. The actors try to reproduce the quick-fire snappy delivery of 40s films, but can't do it - they should all be sentenced to watch multiple episodes of Mad Men.
So, an ultimately unsatisfactory film - I felt cross for the missed opportunity. Nash's story is actually more interesting than the one Howard tells. He was a closeted homosexual for a start, and Crowe, good as he tried to be, couldn't ultimately convey Nash's fragility convincingly enough. Inother words, a classic Ron Howard film, soft-centred, and a cop-out,
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Terminators I & II
I've just been catching up on the first 2 Terminator films in preparation for the impending TIV, or whatever it's going to be called. I was initially sceptical, but then I saw that Christian Bale is going to be playing John Connor, and a) I'll go and see virtually anything CB is in, plus b) I trust Bale's choice of parts - he rarely makes a bad one.
I'd seen both I & II, but a long time ago, so it was an interesting exercise revisiting them as I couldn't really remember them too well. The first thing that struck me was Arnie - he's perfect! But more perfect in the first film, when he's bad Arnie. He's scary, and somehow his unadulterated, implacable evil is more convincing than his warmer, cuddlier righteousness in the second film. T2's enjoyable, though, but you can see the early signs of Cameron overkill. T1 is short and snappy, about 100mins, which is about right, whereas T2, at least in the T2 Special Edition which I borrowed off my son, clocks in at a bloated 2.5 hours and I started to mentally clock off long before the end.
There's a preponderance of special effects, and we're supposed to be amused at AS subverting his role, and the ironic asides. Well, it probably did seem funny when it was released, but now it's a bit tiresome as we've seen so much of this sort of stuff since. The first film doesn't have anything like that at all, and it's the better film for it. I suppose it belongs to Arnie's perfect period, when he made Predator and Conan. They, to me, are just right, whereas in T2, he's beginning his Kindergarted Cop and Twins period.
Anyway, watching them was a mildly interesting exercise and I fancy the new film, so we'll see how the reinvention will go. I'm sure it'll be too long, though, as is the fashion today for these sorts of blockbusters. It would be nice to see a T1-style action film, but I'm not holding out any hope.
I'd seen both I & II, but a long time ago, so it was an interesting exercise revisiting them as I couldn't really remember them too well. The first thing that struck me was Arnie - he's perfect! But more perfect in the first film, when he's bad Arnie. He's scary, and somehow his unadulterated, implacable evil is more convincing than his warmer, cuddlier righteousness in the second film. T2's enjoyable, though, but you can see the early signs of Cameron overkill. T1 is short and snappy, about 100mins, which is about right, whereas T2, at least in the T2 Special Edition which I borrowed off my son, clocks in at a bloated 2.5 hours and I started to mentally clock off long before the end.
There's a preponderance of special effects, and we're supposed to be amused at AS subverting his role, and the ironic asides. Well, it probably did seem funny when it was released, but now it's a bit tiresome as we've seen so much of this sort of stuff since. The first film doesn't have anything like that at all, and it's the better film for it. I suppose it belongs to Arnie's perfect period, when he made Predator and Conan. They, to me, are just right, whereas in T2, he's beginning his Kindergarted Cop and Twins period.
Anyway, watching them was a mildly interesting exercise and I fancy the new film, so we'll see how the reinvention will go. I'm sure it'll be too long, though, as is the fashion today for these sorts of blockbusters. It would be nice to see a T1-style action film, but I'm not holding out any hope.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Local Hero
I saw a programme on TV the other day in the series Movie Connections, about the 80s film Local Hero. The series interviews ppeople involved with certain iconic films, a sort of where-are-they-now type exercise. I haven't seen any of the others as they were about films I either hadn't seen or had much interest in, but Local Hero is different.
It would make my personal top ten -it's a film I've seen many times and have always found magical and very, very special. For those who don't know it, it's about a Texan oilman who's despatched to this Scottish village somewhere on the west coast in order to persuade the villagers to sell the beach, where oil has been discovered, for vast sums of money. which will make the village unimaginably wealthy. They all quite fancy this, except for an old bloke who lives in a hut on the beach and scrapes a living as a beachcomber, and who refuses to have anything to do with it, thus throwing a gigantic spanner in the works.
Over the course of the film, the oilman becomes captivated by the area, the village and the beach, and the deal collapses. The film reveles in the magic of the area - I'm reminded, not so much of Whisky Galore, the film its most often compared with, as of I Know Where I'm Going, the semi-mystical Powell and Pressburger film of the 1940s, in which a brittle English girl becomes captivated by the local laird, and the Scottish islands. It's a classic of the highest order, and Local Hero belongs definitively in that category - a lovely, lovely film. I've been prompted to get it on DVD to as it belongs in my permanent collection.
It would make my personal top ten -it's a film I've seen many times and have always found magical and very, very special. For those who don't know it, it's about a Texan oilman who's despatched to this Scottish village somewhere on the west coast in order to persuade the villagers to sell the beach, where oil has been discovered, for vast sums of money. which will make the village unimaginably wealthy. They all quite fancy this, except for an old bloke who lives in a hut on the beach and scrapes a living as a beachcomber, and who refuses to have anything to do with it, thus throwing a gigantic spanner in the works.
Over the course of the film, the oilman becomes captivated by the area, the village and the beach, and the deal collapses. The film reveles in the magic of the area - I'm reminded, not so much of Whisky Galore, the film its most often compared with, as of I Know Where I'm Going, the semi-mystical Powell and Pressburger film of the 1940s, in which a brittle English girl becomes captivated by the local laird, and the Scottish islands. It's a classic of the highest order, and Local Hero belongs definitively in that category - a lovely, lovely film. I've been prompted to get it on DVD to as it belongs in my permanent collection.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Billy Liar
I watched this the other day - it was on an ancient video and I'd taped it years ago; I'd actually written an essay on it, so had watched it several times and knew it very well. But that was a few years ago, so I thought I'd give it another look. It's about a northern working-class lad who lives in a fantasy world, where fantasy is more real and fulfilling than reality. He has 2 girlfriends, both of whom he strings along, because he has a fantasy that he can have both. This doesn't sound very appealing, but somehow Courtenay makes Billy lovable and endearing.
I love Tom Courtenay. He's wonderful-looking, of course, with his chiselled bone structure, but there's a vulnerability about him that's enormously appealing. He was in the recent Little Dorrit - he's about 70 now, and he played Mr Dorrit, Amy's father, who's incarcerated in the Marshalsea, the debtor's prison, with his family He's retained that vulnerability and deep-rooted sadness, and his performance was heartbreaking.
He produced a book recently consisting of letters his mother sent to him when he was a young man down in London at drama school. He comes from a very working-class background in Hull, so he, unlike Billy, got away. The letters are wonderful, and they're interspersed with his memories, and some of his own letters. The whole thing is a marvellous read.
Anyway, back to Billy. The original play was written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, and it's hilarious. In the film, as well as TC playing Billy (who was played by Albert Finney in the original play), his sidekick at the undertakers where he works, is played by Rodney Bewes. Both lads fantasise, and there's a hilarious scene in which the two wander through the town (which I think is Bradford, though I could be wrong), trading witty fantasies and impersonations. Leonard Rossiter plays their boss, and his performance is another gem.
The thing about the film, as opposed to the play, is its vision of life in the early 60s, as Victorian buildings were pulled down to be be replaced by concrete and modernity. The first scene is a joy - Godfrey Winn is presenting Housewives' Choice, something I remember well from my own childhood, and reads out requests. We see the overjoyed housewives in their tower blocks hearing their requestes read out. Winn was a media ever-present in those days; an iconic figure, and hia performance is a joy. We see a nation in a ferment of change, yet which clings to the safety of tradition. The film is full of such scenes - there's a hilarious scene which depicts a supermarket opening, complete with visiting celebrity.
Billy has the chance to escape to London with Julie Christie, but he doesn't leave - he deliberately misses the train to London and life with Julie ,as, in the end, fantasy is safer than reality. I must mention Christie, as her appearance was one of those iconic moments in cinema. The sight of this loose-limbed, fancy-free girl, sashaying through the city streets, summed up swinging Britain and the atmosphere of the first half of the decade, when you really did feel that anything was possible. A true gem of British cinema - delightful.
I love Tom Courtenay. He's wonderful-looking, of course, with his chiselled bone structure, but there's a vulnerability about him that's enormously appealing. He was in the recent Little Dorrit - he's about 70 now, and he played Mr Dorrit, Amy's father, who's incarcerated in the Marshalsea, the debtor's prison, with his family He's retained that vulnerability and deep-rooted sadness, and his performance was heartbreaking.
He produced a book recently consisting of letters his mother sent to him when he was a young man down in London at drama school. He comes from a very working-class background in Hull, so he, unlike Billy, got away. The letters are wonderful, and they're interspersed with his memories, and some of his own letters. The whole thing is a marvellous read.
Anyway, back to Billy. The original play was written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, and it's hilarious. In the film, as well as TC playing Billy (who was played by Albert Finney in the original play), his sidekick at the undertakers where he works, is played by Rodney Bewes. Both lads fantasise, and there's a hilarious scene in which the two wander through the town (which I think is Bradford, though I could be wrong), trading witty fantasies and impersonations. Leonard Rossiter plays their boss, and his performance is another gem.
The thing about the film, as opposed to the play, is its vision of life in the early 60s, as Victorian buildings were pulled down to be be replaced by concrete and modernity. The first scene is a joy - Godfrey Winn is presenting Housewives' Choice, something I remember well from my own childhood, and reads out requests. We see the overjoyed housewives in their tower blocks hearing their requestes read out. Winn was a media ever-present in those days; an iconic figure, and hia performance is a joy. We see a nation in a ferment of change, yet which clings to the safety of tradition. The film is full of such scenes - there's a hilarious scene which depicts a supermarket opening, complete with visiting celebrity.
Billy has the chance to escape to London with Julie Christie, but he doesn't leave - he deliberately misses the train to London and life with Julie ,as, in the end, fantasy is safer than reality. I must mention Christie, as her appearance was one of those iconic moments in cinema. The sight of this loose-limbed, fancy-free girl, sashaying through the city streets, summed up swinging Britain and the atmosphere of the first half of the decade, when you really did feel that anything was possible. A true gem of British cinema - delightful.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
The Wrestler
I saw this last night at a cinema I hadn't been to for years, the Odeon in the middle of Bristol. It was the only cinema which was still showing it at a reasonable time, so, as my daughter and I both wanted to see it, we went along to the 6.00 showing.
The last time I'd gone there was to see The Blair Witch Project, so you're talking about 10 years ago. It was an unhappy experience - the cinema was packed, hot and sweaty, and any suspense in the film was destroyed by mobile phones going off throughout, and a couple of girls behind us talked all the way through. I think one of them was didn't speak English, and the other one translated throughout! At the end, as we all got up to go, someone shouted out, 'Well, that was a load of rubbish!' And it was hard to disagree, though I've heard that it's much better seen at home - much scarier, so I might give it another try sometime.
Anyway, the cinema is now totally different - clean and comfortable, though it wouldn't do to go when it's packed as there's no stadium seating, which is now mandatory in new cinemas. And it's cheap! A new cinema opened in the middle of Bristol recently, in the new development, and it's pricey. I haven't been yet, and I feel I want to support the old Odeon, as I hate seeing cinemas close down. To keep up the competition, they're charging only £4.75, or £5.75 for the deluxe seats, which have higher backs and better leg room, which is where we went, and it was fine, though there was no-one sitting in front of us.
The film was great - Mickey Rourke was a revelation. I don't remember seeing him in anything before this, but I do know that his life has been a bit of a car crash in recent years. This is etched all over his face, and his huge, hulking presence is in virtually every scene. The camera follows him around, so we see what he sees - I've rarely seen a film where the central character has such presence. I found it one of the most compelling fillms, I've seen for a long time - it depicts people who one can believe really exist, doing the sort of jobs and living the kind of lives actual people live, not Hollywood stars. We see the lives of mobile-home-dwellers, supermarket workers and low-rent pole dancers brought to the screen in unforgiving, yet humane detail. Rourke is a wrestler approaching the end of his career, and he has managed to ruin every aspect of his private life; his ex-wife has disappeared from view and his shaky relationship with his daughter is destroyed when he fails to turn up for a meal in a restaurant with her, because he was too busy getting drunk and sleeping with a prostitute. He collapses with a heart attack and after his operation, is told he must never wrestle again. The final scene follows him as he returns to the ring, as it is the only place where he feels validated. Wrestling gives him the only reason to go on living.
I found the film deeply moving, and it's stayed with me. I couldn't recommend it more highly. Rourke, and his co-star, Marisa Tomei have both been nominated for well-deserved Oscars.
The last time I'd gone there was to see The Blair Witch Project, so you're talking about 10 years ago. It was an unhappy experience - the cinema was packed, hot and sweaty, and any suspense in the film was destroyed by mobile phones going off throughout, and a couple of girls behind us talked all the way through. I think one of them was didn't speak English, and the other one translated throughout! At the end, as we all got up to go, someone shouted out, 'Well, that was a load of rubbish!' And it was hard to disagree, though I've heard that it's much better seen at home - much scarier, so I might give it another try sometime.
Anyway, the cinema is now totally different - clean and comfortable, though it wouldn't do to go when it's packed as there's no stadium seating, which is now mandatory in new cinemas. And it's cheap! A new cinema opened in the middle of Bristol recently, in the new development, and it's pricey. I haven't been yet, and I feel I want to support the old Odeon, as I hate seeing cinemas close down. To keep up the competition, they're charging only £4.75, or £5.75 for the deluxe seats, which have higher backs and better leg room, which is where we went, and it was fine, though there was no-one sitting in front of us.
The film was great - Mickey Rourke was a revelation. I don't remember seeing him in anything before this, but I do know that his life has been a bit of a car crash in recent years. This is etched all over his face, and his huge, hulking presence is in virtually every scene. The camera follows him around, so we see what he sees - I've rarely seen a film where the central character has such presence. I found it one of the most compelling fillms, I've seen for a long time - it depicts people who one can believe really exist, doing the sort of jobs and living the kind of lives actual people live, not Hollywood stars. We see the lives of mobile-home-dwellers, supermarket workers and low-rent pole dancers brought to the screen in unforgiving, yet humane detail. Rourke is a wrestler approaching the end of his career, and he has managed to ruin every aspect of his private life; his ex-wife has disappeared from view and his shaky relationship with his daughter is destroyed when he fails to turn up for a meal in a restaurant with her, because he was too busy getting drunk and sleeping with a prostitute. He collapses with a heart attack and after his operation, is told he must never wrestle again. The final scene follows him as he returns to the ring, as it is the only place where he feels validated. Wrestling gives him the only reason to go on living.
I found the film deeply moving, and it's stayed with me. I couldn't recommend it more highly. Rourke, and his co-star, Marisa Tomei have both been nominated for well-deserved Oscars.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Australia
I went to see this the other day with my daughter. We both knew that nobody else in our family would want to see it, but we had each other. Considering it was a late-afternoon performance on a Tuesday there were more people there than I'd expected, so others obviously had the same idea.
It had had terrible reviews in most of the papers, and Australian critics had savaged it apparently, for trotting out every single Australain cliche in the book However, all these reviews completely missed the point. The people who did like it, including (of course) my favourites, Mark Kermode on FiveLive and the Observer's Philip French got it immediately. A film can be rubbish on one level, but that doesn't in itself make it bad, or unwatchable. Yes, Australia does trot out every Australian cliche in the book, but it remains hugely watchable and enjoyable. It's the way Lurhmann says all the way through, lets not go over the top, lets go way beyond that. The final scene, in which Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are reunited and the half -Aborigine boy goes off into the outback with the native shaman to learn the ways of his ancestors has the soundtrack of, get this, Elgar's Nimrod as a soundtrack, surely the most glaringly inappropriate use of music ever committed to celluloid. But it works, well, sort of, and anyway, it puts a smile on the audience's face.
We have the outback, cattle drives, the carpet bombing of Darwen in WWII, the lot, all ladled on with a huge spade. Austarlia itself is depicted in all its glory, and, having been there for one unforgettable trip, I can vouch for the wonder of the landscape. The country itself is the star, which I suppose was the intention.
Kidman and Jackman enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of the film - Kidman, impossibly, scarily thin, bustles around elegantly, and her transformation into a rancher is more convincing than her earlier elegant English county persona. Jackman is suitably taciturn and surly, and the little boy is suitably charming. All in all, a good evening out - very satisfying.
It had had terrible reviews in most of the papers, and Australian critics had savaged it apparently, for trotting out every single Australain cliche in the book However, all these reviews completely missed the point. The people who did like it, including (of course) my favourites, Mark Kermode on FiveLive and the Observer's Philip French got it immediately. A film can be rubbish on one level, but that doesn't in itself make it bad, or unwatchable. Yes, Australia does trot out every Australian cliche in the book, but it remains hugely watchable and enjoyable. It's the way Lurhmann says all the way through, lets not go over the top, lets go way beyond that. The final scene, in which Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are reunited and the half -Aborigine boy goes off into the outback with the native shaman to learn the ways of his ancestors has the soundtrack of, get this, Elgar's Nimrod as a soundtrack, surely the most glaringly inappropriate use of music ever committed to celluloid. But it works, well, sort of, and anyway, it puts a smile on the audience's face.
We have the outback, cattle drives, the carpet bombing of Darwen in WWII, the lot, all ladled on with a huge spade. Austarlia itself is depicted in all its glory, and, having been there for one unforgettable trip, I can vouch for the wonder of the landscape. The country itself is the star, which I suppose was the intention.
Kidman and Jackman enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of the film - Kidman, impossibly, scarily thin, bustles around elegantly, and her transformation into a rancher is more convincing than her earlier elegant English county persona. Jackman is suitably taciturn and surly, and the little boy is suitably charming. All in all, a good evening out - very satisfying.
Monday, 29 December 2008
Women's Lib
Something reminded me the other day about the Women's Liberation Movement (I think it was a newspaper article about how today's young women are indifferent to feminism, finding it irrelevant). Looking back I see it as something that was a fashion, something you did, because everyone else did. I know that I was very enthusiastic , buying The Female Eunuch and marvelling at it. I also read Kate Millett and some others whose names I can't quite remember at the moment, though I'm sure I'd recognise them if someone reminded me. Oh, I know - Jill Tweedie in the Guardian and of course pioneers like Mary Stott.
Anyway, I started to trawl my memory - I went along to weekly meetings of the local Women's Lib group with a couple of friends, one of which was a New Zealander, Heather, who arrived on our doorstep at the squat in Oxford that myself and my boyfriend had just moved into. She'd been looking for somewhere to live and someone had told her. She was, at the time, a radical feminist, dressed glamorously in an ankle-length ex-Nazi leather coat she'd picked up in an Amsterdam flea-market. She was as thin as a rake and stood on our doorstep, smoking a roll-up. 'Hi - I'm Heather', were her first words, in the broadest Kiwi accent. I'd never met anyone like her before. and her direct, down-to-earth Antipodean good sense soon sorted our flaccid hippy haven.
She introduced me to the burgeoning feminist movement and, along with a few others, went along with Heather to the early meeitings of the local Women's Liberation group. It was in a small church hall type of place and we all sat round in a circle and talked, and sometimes shouted. Our boyfriends would come along with us and sit in the garden of a nearby pub waiting for us, with an air of amused tolerance. Anyway, I don't remember much of what we discussed, except one occasion when someone brought along a film of miners' wives, and the support systems they'd created to help their husbands and their communities during the recent miners' strike (this was around 1973-4, so we were right in the middle of the ill-fated Heath government). This film caused a right storm - I think the woman who'd brought it along had intended to show us that working-class women were as capable of organisation as us middle-class types, but someone got up and angrily asked the group why we sitting watching stuff about a load of housewives, who, of course, were slaves to servility. There was a huge row about the direction feminism should go in - anywa, it was all pretty unedifying, and as someone, probably the only person in the room apart from Heather, also from a humble background, who had some personal experience of working-class life. I don't remember any other meetings, and we soon lost interest in going, though not before we'd participated in an event that still brings me out in a cold sweat every time I think about it.
The group had heard that the students at St Catherine's College, Oxford had hired a stripper to 'perform' in their Junior Common Room (JCR), so it was decided that we'd infiltrate the event and disrupt it. Although the college was all-male in those days, the students had been allowed to bring women to this event so it was pretty easy to get in and sit there unnoticed. What transpired was truly scary - the stripper got going and this was the cue for us to stand up and start shouting things like 'this degrades women' and chanting. There were quite a few of us, but the room was crowded and there were a hell of a lot of students. They went ballistic and chased us out - I don't know what happened because I fled into the nearest ladies' loo and cowered until the mayhem died down and I could slink out unnoticed. The noise was terrific and what was most scary was the bile and viciousness that emanated from the thwarted crowd. I suppose they'd worked themselves up into a state of high sexual anticipation and excitement, and we'd thwarted them. Anyway, I was terrified, not only of the students, but of being found out by my braver colleagues and labelled a coward, which of course I was. The whole episode told me that political activism was not for me and I went on to have babies and acquire the status of the dreaded housewife.
I wonder what happened to everyone there? I know that one of the group went on to marry a vicar and become a well-known writer, and Heather went on to forge a great career at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after many ups and downs, becoming an Australian in the process. She's stayed a good friend and we've kept in close touch, but I sometimes think about all those other young feminists and wonder where they are....
Anyway, I started to trawl my memory - I went along to weekly meetings of the local Women's Lib group with a couple of friends, one of which was a New Zealander, Heather, who arrived on our doorstep at the squat in Oxford that myself and my boyfriend had just moved into. She'd been looking for somewhere to live and someone had told her. She was, at the time, a radical feminist, dressed glamorously in an ankle-length ex-Nazi leather coat she'd picked up in an Amsterdam flea-market. She was as thin as a rake and stood on our doorstep, smoking a roll-up. 'Hi - I'm Heather', were her first words, in the broadest Kiwi accent. I'd never met anyone like her before. and her direct, down-to-earth Antipodean good sense soon sorted our flaccid hippy haven.
She introduced me to the burgeoning feminist movement and, along with a few others, went along with Heather to the early meeitings of the local Women's Liberation group. It was in a small church hall type of place and we all sat round in a circle and talked, and sometimes shouted. Our boyfriends would come along with us and sit in the garden of a nearby pub waiting for us, with an air of amused tolerance. Anyway, I don't remember much of what we discussed, except one occasion when someone brought along a film of miners' wives, and the support systems they'd created to help their husbands and their communities during the recent miners' strike (this was around 1973-4, so we were right in the middle of the ill-fated Heath government). This film caused a right storm - I think the woman who'd brought it along had intended to show us that working-class women were as capable of organisation as us middle-class types, but someone got up and angrily asked the group why we sitting watching stuff about a load of housewives, who, of course, were slaves to servility. There was a huge row about the direction feminism should go in - anywa, it was all pretty unedifying, and as someone, probably the only person in the room apart from Heather, also from a humble background, who had some personal experience of working-class life. I don't remember any other meetings, and we soon lost interest in going, though not before we'd participated in an event that still brings me out in a cold sweat every time I think about it.
The group had heard that the students at St Catherine's College, Oxford had hired a stripper to 'perform' in their Junior Common Room (JCR), so it was decided that we'd infiltrate the event and disrupt it. Although the college was all-male in those days, the students had been allowed to bring women to this event so it was pretty easy to get in and sit there unnoticed. What transpired was truly scary - the stripper got going and this was the cue for us to stand up and start shouting things like 'this degrades women' and chanting. There were quite a few of us, but the room was crowded and there were a hell of a lot of students. They went ballistic and chased us out - I don't know what happened because I fled into the nearest ladies' loo and cowered until the mayhem died down and I could slink out unnoticed. The noise was terrific and what was most scary was the bile and viciousness that emanated from the thwarted crowd. I suppose they'd worked themselves up into a state of high sexual anticipation and excitement, and we'd thwarted them. Anyway, I was terrified, not only of the students, but of being found out by my braver colleagues and labelled a coward, which of course I was. The whole episode told me that political activism was not for me and I went on to have babies and acquire the status of the dreaded housewife.
I wonder what happened to everyone there? I know that one of the group went on to marry a vicar and become a well-known writer, and Heather went on to forge a great career at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after many ups and downs, becoming an Australian in the process. She's stayed a good friend and we've kept in close touch, but I sometimes think about all those other young feminists and wonder where they are....
Monday, 22 December 2008
Woollies
The news of the demise of Woolworths brought back many memories for me. I haven't set foot in Woollies for years so it was hardly part of my emotional landscape, but it provided me with my earliest work experience, so I have some long-ago, fond memories of the place.
I was 14, and in those days you could work legally for 2 hours a dayso I did Friday evenings. It was a small branch in a typical 60s shopping precinct and opened until 7pm on Fridays only in those far-off days before extended opening. Even that was considered pretty revolutionary.
The staff consisted of a handful of embittered regulars and the rest were schoolgirls. We had few customers, and our most frequent visitors were a gang of Rockers (we're talking about the mid-60s, so there were still Mods and Rockers, in the days before there were hippies) who would loaf around, shoplift and drop off stink bombs.
My memories are pretty fragmentary, but I seem to have spent most of my time there working on the biscuit counter, where we had those old-fashioned tins ranged in front of us, and we'd sell them loose. And of course there were the famous tins of broken biscuits. It seems unimaginable now, but people used to buy them! Why can't we be as frugal nowadays? I suppose we may have to be in the coming months as the credit crunch starts to bite, but Woollies will be long gone.
After we'd finished work, we used to go over to Lewis Separates which stayed open a bit later, and spend all our wages on clothes. We were Mods, of course, or tried to be - anyway, clothes, and music (increasingly) were all we thought about (boys weren't quite so important). Looking good, and knowing the latest dance steps were what was really important. I do remember vividly the exhilarating feeling of having my own money after years of a few coins pocket money and the unconfined joy of spending it on whatever I wanted - bliss! I felt I had the world at my feet.
So, while I can't feel much emotion at Woollies demise, I have fond memories, and I'm sure I'm not the only one as not many places were willing to employ girls as young as us. I know my brother found it much easier to work, and he seemed to have loads of jobs.
Anyway, once I was 15 I graduated to working all day Saturday, but that didn't last long. I got a much-coveted job usheretting at the Oxford Playhouse, but that's another story.....
I was 14, and in those days you could work legally for 2 hours a dayso I did Friday evenings. It was a small branch in a typical 60s shopping precinct and opened until 7pm on Fridays only in those far-off days before extended opening. Even that was considered pretty revolutionary.
The staff consisted of a handful of embittered regulars and the rest were schoolgirls. We had few customers, and our most frequent visitors were a gang of Rockers (we're talking about the mid-60s, so there were still Mods and Rockers, in the days before there were hippies) who would loaf around, shoplift and drop off stink bombs.
My memories are pretty fragmentary, but I seem to have spent most of my time there working on the biscuit counter, where we had those old-fashioned tins ranged in front of us, and we'd sell them loose. And of course there were the famous tins of broken biscuits. It seems unimaginable now, but people used to buy them! Why can't we be as frugal nowadays? I suppose we may have to be in the coming months as the credit crunch starts to bite, but Woollies will be long gone.
After we'd finished work, we used to go over to Lewis Separates which stayed open a bit later, and spend all our wages on clothes. We were Mods, of course, or tried to be - anyway, clothes, and music (increasingly) were all we thought about (boys weren't quite so important). Looking good, and knowing the latest dance steps were what was really important. I do remember vividly the exhilarating feeling of having my own money after years of a few coins pocket money and the unconfined joy of spending it on whatever I wanted - bliss! I felt I had the world at my feet.
So, while I can't feel much emotion at Woollies demise, I have fond memories, and I'm sure I'm not the only one as not many places were willing to employ girls as young as us. I know my brother found it much easier to work, and he seemed to have loads of jobs.
Anyway, once I was 15 I graduated to working all day Saturday, but that didn't last long. I got a much-coveted job usheretting at the Oxford Playhouse, but that's another story.....
Sunday, 7 December 2008
stationary
I was thinking about stationary the other day as I was writing my diary. My diary's a beautifully designed moleskin-bound thing from Paperchase, with an elastic bookmark. It's heavy, luxurious, and perfectly-formed. I'm about to start on my second one - though I've been writing a diary for a few years using other designs, I finally discovered these lovely objects in the Paperchase concession in Borders.
It got me thinking, and reminiscing about stationary. Now, I'm one of those people who love stationary, who have a bit of a fetish about it. I know that it's a syndrome as I remember reading an article about stationary-addiction, so I know I'm not alone. In fact there was an article in The Times the other day about a love, no, need for lovely leather-bound diaries in today's era of email and text.
Anyway, stationary-addiction can be defined, if such a thing can be defined, as a love of paper, pens, diaries, and all ancillary items. Computer stuff does not count. But where does this love of everything to do with writing come from?
I can only speak for myself, but I can trace it right back to childhood. I would go into town with my parents, and rather than drag me round Sainsbury's or the Co-Op, they would leave me in a wonderful emporium which I don't think had changed since the Edwardian era, called something like Oxford Educational Bookshop. At least I think it was called that but I may be wrong, but it was something like that. It was a two-story emporium - dark and overflowing with stationary stuff. The ground floor was relatively uninteresting, full of rubbers and pencils, but upstairs was where the action was. Or rather, inaction. It was usually empty of people, apart from me and the occasional browser, but it was full of piles of paper, exercise books - stationary. I would wander its aisles, such as they were, fingering the stuff, looking at it, stroking it, reading it, and, I guess, fetishizing it. I would spend hours there. And I could. No-one ever challenged or questioned my right to be there, in fact I don't remember the presence of any staff.
The funny thing is, when my daughter left school at 18, and decided that she wanted to work for a year to save up enough money to go to Australia for a year, she ended up working in - guess what? A stationary shop! And it was a wonderfully old-fashioned place that hadn't changed in decades. Not quite the Edwardian emporium of my memory but a 1970s-type of place with absolutely no 80s ambience at all. Anyway she spent a very happy year there, and still returns every now and again to see the staff. And it still hasn't changed. Though whether it'll survive the economic storm that's coming remains to be seen.
Anyway, one thing I've found in adulthood is that I'm definitely not alone - in fact I imagine that it may become more prevalent as stationary becomes a bit of an endangered species. Nothing can possibly replace the joy of pen on paper, especially moleskin-bound paper. And of course, the pen has to be a green Pentel rollerball pen with black ink. I've just discovered the WH Smith website so have been able to buy a big job lot of them. It's one of my biggest secret terrors that they'll be discontinued. Along with black notebooks!
It got me thinking, and reminiscing about stationary. Now, I'm one of those people who love stationary, who have a bit of a fetish about it. I know that it's a syndrome as I remember reading an article about stationary-addiction, so I know I'm not alone. In fact there was an article in The Times the other day about a love, no, need for lovely leather-bound diaries in today's era of email and text.
Anyway, stationary-addiction can be defined, if such a thing can be defined, as a love of paper, pens, diaries, and all ancillary items. Computer stuff does not count. But where does this love of everything to do with writing come from?
I can only speak for myself, but I can trace it right back to childhood. I would go into town with my parents, and rather than drag me round Sainsbury's or the Co-Op, they would leave me in a wonderful emporium which I don't think had changed since the Edwardian era, called something like Oxford Educational Bookshop. At least I think it was called that but I may be wrong, but it was something like that. It was a two-story emporium - dark and overflowing with stationary stuff. The ground floor was relatively uninteresting, full of rubbers and pencils, but upstairs was where the action was. Or rather, inaction. It was usually empty of people, apart from me and the occasional browser, but it was full of piles of paper, exercise books - stationary. I would wander its aisles, such as they were, fingering the stuff, looking at it, stroking it, reading it, and, I guess, fetishizing it. I would spend hours there. And I could. No-one ever challenged or questioned my right to be there, in fact I don't remember the presence of any staff.
The funny thing is, when my daughter left school at 18, and decided that she wanted to work for a year to save up enough money to go to Australia for a year, she ended up working in - guess what? A stationary shop! And it was a wonderfully old-fashioned place that hadn't changed in decades. Not quite the Edwardian emporium of my memory but a 1970s-type of place with absolutely no 80s ambience at all. Anyway she spent a very happy year there, and still returns every now and again to see the staff. And it still hasn't changed. Though whether it'll survive the economic storm that's coming remains to be seen.
Anyway, one thing I've found in adulthood is that I'm definitely not alone - in fact I imagine that it may become more prevalent as stationary becomes a bit of an endangered species. Nothing can possibly replace the joy of pen on paper, especially moleskin-bound paper. And of course, the pen has to be a green Pentel rollerball pen with black ink. I've just discovered the WH Smith website so have been able to buy a big job lot of them. It's one of my biggest secret terrors that they'll be discontinued. Along with black notebooks!
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Of Time and the City
I went to see Of Time and the City recently, directed and narrated by Terence Davies. It's his paen to the Liverpool of his childhood, and was received with great acclaim at Cannes in the summer.
I went with a group of friends, one of whom was someone who'd grown up in Liverpool at around the same time, the post-WWII period. He was deeply moved by the film, appreciating Davies's grasp of Liverpool, not as a geographical entity, but as a place of imagination and feeling. I feel very much the same about Oxford - the place where you grew up becomes part of your DNA, a place that you feel rather than see. I visited Oxford a couple of years ago - the first time for quite a while. I'd left at the age of 32, after spending virtually my whole life there, and had only returned a few times, but walking round the streets of the city, it was as if I knew every paving stone, every brick in the wall. Even though much in the city has changed beyond recognition, everything is still there, not just in my memory, but in my unconscious, in every fibre of my being.
So I recognised where Davies was coming from, and so did my friend. On Mark Kermode's film review slot on Radio 5, he talked about the torrent of mail he'd received after he'd praised the film to the skies the other week. Many people had gone to see it after hearing his recommendation, but had ended up bored, or hating it. Though there were some who'd loved it. Davies's voice was a problem for some, and it's not a normal one - like other Liverpudlians he had elocution lessons (Beryl Bainbridge is another) as the L'pool accent was seen as a massive handicap before the Beatles came along and made it fashionable. So his voice is fruity and posh, with an acerbic, but yearning tone which encapsulated the act of memory, of return, of looking back, perfectly
The film is a collection of found footage woven together to form a tapestry of Liverpool then and now. And that's basically it, though I cannot overemphasise that it's actually much, much more. I will certainly buy the DVD when it's released as I think it will be a film that I'll return to over and over again. Thank you, Terence
I went with a group of friends, one of whom was someone who'd grown up in Liverpool at around the same time, the post-WWII period. He was deeply moved by the film, appreciating Davies's grasp of Liverpool, not as a geographical entity, but as a place of imagination and feeling. I feel very much the same about Oxford - the place where you grew up becomes part of your DNA, a place that you feel rather than see. I visited Oxford a couple of years ago - the first time for quite a while. I'd left at the age of 32, after spending virtually my whole life there, and had only returned a few times, but walking round the streets of the city, it was as if I knew every paving stone, every brick in the wall. Even though much in the city has changed beyond recognition, everything is still there, not just in my memory, but in my unconscious, in every fibre of my being.
So I recognised where Davies was coming from, and so did my friend. On Mark Kermode's film review slot on Radio 5, he talked about the torrent of mail he'd received after he'd praised the film to the skies the other week. Many people had gone to see it after hearing his recommendation, but had ended up bored, or hating it. Though there were some who'd loved it. Davies's voice was a problem for some, and it's not a normal one - like other Liverpudlians he had elocution lessons (Beryl Bainbridge is another) as the L'pool accent was seen as a massive handicap before the Beatles came along and made it fashionable. So his voice is fruity and posh, with an acerbic, but yearning tone which encapsulated the act of memory, of return, of looking back, perfectly
The film is a collection of found footage woven together to form a tapestry of Liverpool then and now. And that's basically it, though I cannot overemphasise that it's actually much, much more. I will certainly buy the DVD when it's released as I think it will be a film that I'll return to over and over again. Thank you, Terence
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Dylan again
I watched my videos of the BBC's collection of programmes they screened a few years ago the other day (I think they're from about 2005). I watched them when they were first shown, and I taped them all as I knew I'd want to see them again. The first was Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home which one of my sons has on DVD and I'd borrowed it from him a few months ago. but I couldn't resist seeing it yet again for the third time.
Here is an artist at the height of his powers, but who's clearly realised that everything's beginning to get out of control. I was struck this time by how acutely intelligent and perceptive Dylan is during this period (early-mid-60s). It's as if he has a kind of X-Ray vision and sees stuff no-one else can. He's a sponge, and soaks up everything that's going on around him. No Direction Home is interspersed with snippets of recent interviews with him and he's at great pains to tell us, as he has done throughout his life that he has no interest in politics or attitudes, or opinions. This was horribly at odds with 60s attitudes, and got him into much hot water as he repeatedly came up against people who wanted him to be their spokesman and a mouthpiece.
Dave van Ronk says in No Direction that he somehow tapped into the collective unconscious of the early 60s and could see that there was a fundamental sea-change going on (as evidenced by his famous 'something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?'). He was a cultural magpie, and his endlessly fertile brain soaked up everything around him like a sponge. This, together with his fascinatiopn with words, and their power, enabled him to produce epics like Hard Rain in which vast spaces and distances open up - giving us new visions with a myhtic, epic quality that have never been surpassed.
Tambourine Man was a kind of catalyst (it certainly was for me). Its wild, poetry took off into the stratosphere, taking us young folks who were ready and waiting with it, giving us a feeling that there wasn't anything that we weren't capable of. His quicksilver mind always outwitted the clumsy preconceptions of his interviewers, who were left trailing in his wake of his fierce intelligence.
There's wonderful footage of his performance at Newport in 1965 with the Paul Butterfield Band. The coruscating guitar of Mike Bloomfield begins Maggie's Farm, and in a way, it's even more cataclysmic than his later stuff with the Band. Boos and jeers ring out, and people who were there queue up to try and distance themselves from the hatred and rancour that greeted him. Few are prepared to admit now how much they loathed it all.
I remember clearly hearing Like a Rolling Stone for the first time and feel privileged to have been able to do so. It was on Radio Luxembourg, with its dodgy reception and Horace Batchelor
ads. What a time that was! To me, it remains his greatest period - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. His motorcycle accident happened soon after, but he was still able to produce the magisterial John Wesley Harding. Then something happened - and out came the dismal Nashville Skyline and although I dutifully bought it, Dylan was never the same for me.
I've just started reading Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic, about the Basement Tapes, so perhaps that'll shed some light. I'll post more when I've finished.
Anyway, No Direction is a wonderful picture of an artist at the height of his powers and Dylan has atremendous chronicler of his life in Scorsese. More please!
Here is an artist at the height of his powers, but who's clearly realised that everything's beginning to get out of control. I was struck this time by how acutely intelligent and perceptive Dylan is during this period (early-mid-60s). It's as if he has a kind of X-Ray vision and sees stuff no-one else can. He's a sponge, and soaks up everything that's going on around him. No Direction Home is interspersed with snippets of recent interviews with him and he's at great pains to tell us, as he has done throughout his life that he has no interest in politics or attitudes, or opinions. This was horribly at odds with 60s attitudes, and got him into much hot water as he repeatedly came up against people who wanted him to be their spokesman and a mouthpiece.
Dave van Ronk says in No Direction that he somehow tapped into the collective unconscious of the early 60s and could see that there was a fundamental sea-change going on (as evidenced by his famous 'something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?'). He was a cultural magpie, and his endlessly fertile brain soaked up everything around him like a sponge. This, together with his fascinatiopn with words, and their power, enabled him to produce epics like Hard Rain in which vast spaces and distances open up - giving us new visions with a myhtic, epic quality that have never been surpassed.
Tambourine Man was a kind of catalyst (it certainly was for me). Its wild, poetry took off into the stratosphere, taking us young folks who were ready and waiting with it, giving us a feeling that there wasn't anything that we weren't capable of. His quicksilver mind always outwitted the clumsy preconceptions of his interviewers, who were left trailing in his wake of his fierce intelligence.
There's wonderful footage of his performance at Newport in 1965 with the Paul Butterfield Band. The coruscating guitar of Mike Bloomfield begins Maggie's Farm, and in a way, it's even more cataclysmic than his later stuff with the Band. Boos and jeers ring out, and people who were there queue up to try and distance themselves from the hatred and rancour that greeted him. Few are prepared to admit now how much they loathed it all.
I remember clearly hearing Like a Rolling Stone for the first time and feel privileged to have been able to do so. It was on Radio Luxembourg, with its dodgy reception and Horace Batchelor
ads. What a time that was! To me, it remains his greatest period - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. His motorcycle accident happened soon after, but he was still able to produce the magisterial John Wesley Harding. Then something happened - and out came the dismal Nashville Skyline and although I dutifully bought it, Dylan was never the same for me.
I've just started reading Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic, about the Basement Tapes, so perhaps that'll shed some light. I'll post more when I've finished.
Anyway, No Direction is a wonderful picture of an artist at the height of his powers and Dylan has atremendous chronicler of his life in Scorsese. More please!
Monday, 10 November 2008
The Leopard
I watched this film twice (my latest DVD rental) - I'd always wanted to see it but had never managed it so finally caught up with it. I'd long had a fascination with Italian cinema ever since I did an Open University course in post-war French and Italian society which had a substantial component on Italian neo-realist film.
Visconti was an especially interesting character - a Marxist, homosexual aristocrat who made one of the earliest neo-realist films, Ossessione. We were sent a video with various film clips as part of the study pack and there were several clips from Ossessione, but I soon obtained it on video, and even went to see it at the cinema a few years ago. I can't remember why it was on, but there was a one-off screening at the Watershed one Sunday afternoon, so I couldn't possibly miss that. It had become one of my favourite films - gritty, in black-and-white, it depicted the underside of Italian society for the first time ever. It was made during Mussolini's regime - I don't know how Visconti managed it, but it was an act of great courage. He went on to make La Terra Trema a seminal film in the neo-realist canon, but post-war, his career path followed a highly individual trajectory.
The Leopard was released in 1963 and by then Visconti was making large-scale epics about Italian history, notably Rocco and his Brothers in 1960, which I remember my father going to see on his own. It was about a family of boxers (my father was a huge boxing fan) and of course it had subtitles. Dad's hearing had been damaged in the war, so the subtitles made a huge difference. He didn't go to the cinema much, so this must have been pretty special for him, though I have no idea what he made of the film.
Senso, which was set in the mid-19th century, dealt with the Italian aristocracy, a subject of which Visconti had a feeling for, and knowledge of which was unsurpassed. I haven't seen Senso, so it'll go straight on to my rental list. Later he made The Damned which was about the German upper classes' complicity with Nazism, and starred Dirk Bogarde. I did see that a long time ago, but my appetite has been whetted so that'll go on the list as well.
The Leopard was graced by Burt Lancaster in the leading role as Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, the head of a decaying Sicilian family, buffeted by Garibaldi's revolution. I written about Lancaster before, and although he's dubbed here, his presence illuminates the film from begininng to end. Dubbing is perfectly normal in Italian cinema, even Italian dialogue is often dubbed for Italians, so it doesn't really seem out of place. It does enable actors such as Lancaster, Bogarde, and Alain Delon, another Visconti favourite who features here, to feature quite comfortably in Italian films. Anyway, Lancaster's performance is masterly. His character knows and accepts that he and his class are doomed to pass away, and the final scene, in which Salina leaves the grandiose ball alone, on foot, leaving everyone else to drive off in ther carriages, and slowly wanders the darkened streets, stopping and quitely genuflecting as a religious procession passes by, manages to be deeply moving. I can't possibly explain why - Lancaster's in long shot, the camera's withdrawing and letting the action unfold - but after nearly 3 hours in his company, both he and Visconti have managed to make us care about him.
It's full of glorious set pieces, the centrepiece the ballroom scene at the end which is a full 40 minutes. I suppose many would consider it goes on for far too long, but it lets us in to the heart and soul of Sicilian society - magnificent.
I must mention the music. Visconti uses music a great deal, in fact his films are operatic. It's yearning and emotional, and pretty old-fashioned. I loved it - it's elegaic, emotional and full of longing and sadness. It's by Nino Rota, who was responsible for the music for The Godfather. I can imagine it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it's a perfect marriage of sound and vision.
Italian cinema nosedived in the 1970s but appears to be on the brink of a resurgence - ;et's hope so, the Italians have a rich cinematic tradition. Meanwhile I'll revisit some of its greatest hits.
Visconti was an especially interesting character - a Marxist, homosexual aristocrat who made one of the earliest neo-realist films, Ossessione. We were sent a video with various film clips as part of the study pack and there were several clips from Ossessione, but I soon obtained it on video, and even went to see it at the cinema a few years ago. I can't remember why it was on, but there was a one-off screening at the Watershed one Sunday afternoon, so I couldn't possibly miss that. It had become one of my favourite films - gritty, in black-and-white, it depicted the underside of Italian society for the first time ever. It was made during Mussolini's regime - I don't know how Visconti managed it, but it was an act of great courage. He went on to make La Terra Trema a seminal film in the neo-realist canon, but post-war, his career path followed a highly individual trajectory.
The Leopard was released in 1963 and by then Visconti was making large-scale epics about Italian history, notably Rocco and his Brothers in 1960, which I remember my father going to see on his own. It was about a family of boxers (my father was a huge boxing fan) and of course it had subtitles. Dad's hearing had been damaged in the war, so the subtitles made a huge difference. He didn't go to the cinema much, so this must have been pretty special for him, though I have no idea what he made of the film.
Senso, which was set in the mid-19th century, dealt with the Italian aristocracy, a subject of which Visconti had a feeling for, and knowledge of which was unsurpassed. I haven't seen Senso, so it'll go straight on to my rental list. Later he made The Damned which was about the German upper classes' complicity with Nazism, and starred Dirk Bogarde. I did see that a long time ago, but my appetite has been whetted so that'll go on the list as well.
The Leopard was graced by Burt Lancaster in the leading role as Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, the head of a decaying Sicilian family, buffeted by Garibaldi's revolution. I written about Lancaster before, and although he's dubbed here, his presence illuminates the film from begininng to end. Dubbing is perfectly normal in Italian cinema, even Italian dialogue is often dubbed for Italians, so it doesn't really seem out of place. It does enable actors such as Lancaster, Bogarde, and Alain Delon, another Visconti favourite who features here, to feature quite comfortably in Italian films. Anyway, Lancaster's performance is masterly. His character knows and accepts that he and his class are doomed to pass away, and the final scene, in which Salina leaves the grandiose ball alone, on foot, leaving everyone else to drive off in ther carriages, and slowly wanders the darkened streets, stopping and quitely genuflecting as a religious procession passes by, manages to be deeply moving. I can't possibly explain why - Lancaster's in long shot, the camera's withdrawing and letting the action unfold - but after nearly 3 hours in his company, both he and Visconti have managed to make us care about him.
It's full of glorious set pieces, the centrepiece the ballroom scene at the end which is a full 40 minutes. I suppose many would consider it goes on for far too long, but it lets us in to the heart and soul of Sicilian society - magnificent.
I must mention the music. Visconti uses music a great deal, in fact his films are operatic. It's yearning and emotional, and pretty old-fashioned. I loved it - it's elegaic, emotional and full of longing and sadness. It's by Nino Rota, who was responsible for the music for The Godfather. I can imagine it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it's a perfect marriage of sound and vision.
Italian cinema nosedived in the 1970s but appears to be on the brink of a resurgence - ;et's hope so, the Italians have a rich cinematic tradition. Meanwhile I'll revisit some of its greatest hits.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Brideshead Revisited
I saw the new film of this book last week; it wasn't at the top of my 'to-see' list, but my daughter wanted to go, so, as we knew nobody else in our mostly male family wouldn't want to go, off we went to the local multiplex.
We thought we were going to be the only people in the audience (we were, once before, when we saw the Hamlet set in a present-day New York loft apartment, starring Ethan Hawke. It was quite good actually, but a rather weird experience, watching Hamlet in a deserted multiplex auditorium). But 2 more people turned up, so the 4 of us settled down, rattling around in a huge cinema.
Brideshead is something I feel very attached to; I read the book back in the 1970s, so I was very much the age my daughter is now when I first encountered it. I read it several times, luxuriating in Waugh's perfect prose and inimitable storytelling. I went on to read most of Waugh's other novels, and then his diaries and letters. His l;ife was fascinating - although far removed from my own world, I was seduced, and still am, by the whole Waugh milieu.
Anyway, along came the ITV serial in about 1981, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, which of course became a benchmark for so-called 'heritage' drama serials. In the days when there were only 3 channels, it became compulsive viewing for millions, and the nation was riveted. I remember looking forward with high excitement to the final episode, which was screened just before Christmas. The nation was frozen under a blanket of snow and ice; the Solidarity protests were underway in Poland, and people over there were starving; the Tory spending cuts were taking hold and the country was still only beginning to recover from the late 70s recession, yet we were all held in thrall to this elegy for British country house aristocratic life before WWII.
Jeremy Irons essentially read the book as a voiceover, and his elegaic, understated style set the tone for the whole dramatisation. John Mortimer wrote the script and I can't see any deviation from Waugh. Mortimer is a socialist atheist, about as far removed from Waugh as is possible, yet he captured the spirit of the book perfectly. The casting was perfect - I've said this before, but it's one of my bugbears, so I'll say it again - they could all speak Waugh's dialogue, and, try as they might, none of the actors in the new film could. Emme Thompson as Lady Marchmain did her best, but even she couldn't manage it. Claire Bloom played her in the TV series, and portrayed her icy elegance perfectly. Thompson was good, but somehow too robust, and coul;dn't quite manage to excise the estuary from her voice. Patrick Malahide as Charles's father did better, as did Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain, but when you know they were following in the footsteps of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier then even these fine actors are going to seem somewhat diminished. Gielgud caught Mr Ryder's unworldly yet lethal self-absorption so perfectly, it's hard to imagine it being done any better.
I must also mention Phoebe Nicholls as Cordelia. She captured her heartfelt goodness perfectly. She only made the most perfunctory appearance in the new film - a merely token presence only, but in the book, and the TV series, she's central. She's a living embodiment of how Catholic lfe should be lived, and example to all the other characters, and she could have been insufferable, but Nicholls made her enchanting. I suppose the filmmakers either couldn't find anyone who could play the part convincingly, or they just couldn't be bothered with her, seeing her as just a priggish goody-goody.
Anyway, what was good about the new film was Ben Whishaw as Sebastian. I love Whishaw as an actor, and I think he's something very special. He had some bad reviews and I couldn't find anyone who was prepared to say a good word about his performance. But I though he captured Sebastian's damaged fragility perfectly. Anthony Andrews was of course superb, and managed to convey Sebastian's self-knowledge and deliberate self-destruction beautifully, but he was physically wrong - too tall and too robust. He towered over Irons which somehow seemed wrong, while Whishaw seemed as is he might break at any moment, which is how I always imagined Sebastian.
Mortimer, in spite of his atheism, never shied away from the religion, which is central to the book. Waugh says in the preface that it's the subject, but the film pushed it aside as a kind of annoying extra that they had to somehow fit in, but wasn't really interested. Mortimer was interested, and in the book Charles comes to recognise the operation of grace - something which the film ignores. Film Charles remains a doubter, which is wrong. Which makes Julia's refusal to continue their relationship meaningless. And that's another thing - Julia. Diana Quick in the TV series was perfect, brittle, but vulnerable. Again Hayley Atwell did her best but was too solid. You just couldn't imagine her giving up Charles for God.
So, a missed opportunity perhaps, but I don't think the book is filmable nowadays on any level. You have to be able to call on people who are prepared to take Waugh seriously, and I don't think any one is these days. Oh well....I suppose we'll never see another good Waugh adaptaion, though there are plenty out there already. Kristin Scott Thomas in A Handful of Dust - another actress who can speak properly And does anyone remember the marvellous Sword of Honour BBC serial in the 1960s, with Edward Woodward? A creditable version was done a few years ago with Daniel Craig which I remember as being rather good, but, in the end, the books are so good that they spring to life in one's head.
We thought we were going to be the only people in the audience (we were, once before, when we saw the Hamlet set in a present-day New York loft apartment, starring Ethan Hawke. It was quite good actually, but a rather weird experience, watching Hamlet in a deserted multiplex auditorium). But 2 more people turned up, so the 4 of us settled down, rattling around in a huge cinema.
Brideshead is something I feel very attached to; I read the book back in the 1970s, so I was very much the age my daughter is now when I first encountered it. I read it several times, luxuriating in Waugh's perfect prose and inimitable storytelling. I went on to read most of Waugh's other novels, and then his diaries and letters. His l;ife was fascinating - although far removed from my own world, I was seduced, and still am, by the whole Waugh milieu.
Anyway, along came the ITV serial in about 1981, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, which of course became a benchmark for so-called 'heritage' drama serials. In the days when there were only 3 channels, it became compulsive viewing for millions, and the nation was riveted. I remember looking forward with high excitement to the final episode, which was screened just before Christmas. The nation was frozen under a blanket of snow and ice; the Solidarity protests were underway in Poland, and people over there were starving; the Tory spending cuts were taking hold and the country was still only beginning to recover from the late 70s recession, yet we were all held in thrall to this elegy for British country house aristocratic life before WWII.
Jeremy Irons essentially read the book as a voiceover, and his elegaic, understated style set the tone for the whole dramatisation. John Mortimer wrote the script and I can't see any deviation from Waugh. Mortimer is a socialist atheist, about as far removed from Waugh as is possible, yet he captured the spirit of the book perfectly. The casting was perfect - I've said this before, but it's one of my bugbears, so I'll say it again - they could all speak Waugh's dialogue, and, try as they might, none of the actors in the new film could. Emme Thompson as Lady Marchmain did her best, but even she couldn't manage it. Claire Bloom played her in the TV series, and portrayed her icy elegance perfectly. Thompson was good, but somehow too robust, and coul;dn't quite manage to excise the estuary from her voice. Patrick Malahide as Charles's father did better, as did Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain, but when you know they were following in the footsteps of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier then even these fine actors are going to seem somewhat diminished. Gielgud caught Mr Ryder's unworldly yet lethal self-absorption so perfectly, it's hard to imagine it being done any better.
I must also mention Phoebe Nicholls as Cordelia. She captured her heartfelt goodness perfectly. She only made the most perfunctory appearance in the new film - a merely token presence only, but in the book, and the TV series, she's central. She's a living embodiment of how Catholic lfe should be lived, and example to all the other characters, and she could have been insufferable, but Nicholls made her enchanting. I suppose the filmmakers either couldn't find anyone who could play the part convincingly, or they just couldn't be bothered with her, seeing her as just a priggish goody-goody.
Anyway, what was good about the new film was Ben Whishaw as Sebastian. I love Whishaw as an actor, and I think he's something very special. He had some bad reviews and I couldn't find anyone who was prepared to say a good word about his performance. But I though he captured Sebastian's damaged fragility perfectly. Anthony Andrews was of course superb, and managed to convey Sebastian's self-knowledge and deliberate self-destruction beautifully, but he was physically wrong - too tall and too robust. He towered over Irons which somehow seemed wrong, while Whishaw seemed as is he might break at any moment, which is how I always imagined Sebastian.
Mortimer, in spite of his atheism, never shied away from the religion, which is central to the book. Waugh says in the preface that it's the subject, but the film pushed it aside as a kind of annoying extra that they had to somehow fit in, but wasn't really interested. Mortimer was interested, and in the book Charles comes to recognise the operation of grace - something which the film ignores. Film Charles remains a doubter, which is wrong. Which makes Julia's refusal to continue their relationship meaningless. And that's another thing - Julia. Diana Quick in the TV series was perfect, brittle, but vulnerable. Again Hayley Atwell did her best but was too solid. You just couldn't imagine her giving up Charles for God.
So, a missed opportunity perhaps, but I don't think the book is filmable nowadays on any level. You have to be able to call on people who are prepared to take Waugh seriously, and I don't think any one is these days. Oh well....I suppose we'll never see another good Waugh adaptaion, though there are plenty out there already. Kristin Scott Thomas in A Handful of Dust - another actress who can speak properly And does anyone remember the marvellous Sword of Honour BBC serial in the 1960s, with Edward Woodward? A creditable version was done a few years ago with Daniel Craig which I remember as being rather good, but, in the end, the books are so good that they spring to life in one's head.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy's book has been dramatised before, notably by Roman Polanski nearly 30 years ago. I saw it at the time, but I need to revisit it -Nastassia Kinski was Tess and that's about all I can remember.
I first read the book as a young teenager; I'd never heard of Hardy until I read an article in the teen magazine Petticoat when I was about 12 or 13. Petticoat was a new publication which sought to capture the burgeoning early-60s ethos and attempted to be different from longer-established mags such as Jackie. It contained the usual cartoon-strips and articles on fashion, makeup and relationships, but it also touched on cultural topics, and its earliest issues had celebrities talking about their favourite books. Jean Shrimpton, the Kate Moss of the 60s, talked about Tess of the D'Urbervilles and what it meant to her, and I was captivated. Something I've never forgotted was her description of the passage where the dairymaids cross a stream on their way to church dressed in their best clothes. Shrimpton talked about the skirts of their white muslin dresses flying up and butterflies being trapped in them, and what a miraculous image that was. I was captivated and resolved to read Hardy as soon as I could.
Of course I wasn't aware that the 60s saw a renaissance of interest in Hardy's novels. He'd fallen out of favour since his death, but his books had begun to appear on the 'O' and 'A' Level syllabuses. We did The Woodlanders for 'O'Level and The Return of the Native for 'A' Level, and we all loved them, but Tess, and Jude the Obscure were not surprisingly kept off the syllabus. Of course these two, both emotional rollercoasters are strong meat, and were my favourites. Tess is the perfect book for romantically-inclined adolescents, but I think it really must have beed a sixties thing, as ny children, when asked to read Hardy at school, were unmoved. I don't know it was because they were boys, but I have a feeling that Hardy's books caught the temperature of the times, and the 80s were less sympathetic to his work.
Anyway, the TV series. This production was a typical 2000s BBC costume drama; high production values, great care lavished on sets and costunes, a lush musical score and easy-on-the-eye actors. This can have mixed results - for example, Gemma Arterton as Tess looked perfect, very much as I'd always imagined Tess; tall, beautiful and with a slightly other-worldly appearance, a bit apart from everyone else, with a faraway look in her eyes. The actor who played Angel though, was wrong, wrong, wrong. He looked far too young, and had a petulant look on his face, as if he was always about to stick his lower lip out. He was also too small. I'd always seen Angel as a big man; fair-haired, yes and a chilly character, but he was a man of weight and substance. This version was a callow adolescent. But maybe it's my vision that's wrong.
Anyway I enjoyed the first 3 episodes, but the final one dragged, and although I dutifully watched it through to the end, I'd lost interest long before. Tess's fate left me unmoved, and I'm not sure why. I suppose I just didn't believe a word of it. The thing with Hardy is that you do believe it when you're reading it, however preposterous the story.
Anyway, time to have another look at the Polanski, I think.
I first read the book as a young teenager; I'd never heard of Hardy until I read an article in the teen magazine Petticoat when I was about 12 or 13. Petticoat was a new publication which sought to capture the burgeoning early-60s ethos and attempted to be different from longer-established mags such as Jackie. It contained the usual cartoon-strips and articles on fashion, makeup and relationships, but it also touched on cultural topics, and its earliest issues had celebrities talking about their favourite books. Jean Shrimpton, the Kate Moss of the 60s, talked about Tess of the D'Urbervilles and what it meant to her, and I was captivated. Something I've never forgotted was her description of the passage where the dairymaids cross a stream on their way to church dressed in their best clothes. Shrimpton talked about the skirts of their white muslin dresses flying up and butterflies being trapped in them, and what a miraculous image that was. I was captivated and resolved to read Hardy as soon as I could.
Of course I wasn't aware that the 60s saw a renaissance of interest in Hardy's novels. He'd fallen out of favour since his death, but his books had begun to appear on the 'O' and 'A' Level syllabuses. We did The Woodlanders for 'O'Level and The Return of the Native for 'A' Level, and we all loved them, but Tess, and Jude the Obscure were not surprisingly kept off the syllabus. Of course these two, both emotional rollercoasters are strong meat, and were my favourites. Tess is the perfect book for romantically-inclined adolescents, but I think it really must have beed a sixties thing, as ny children, when asked to read Hardy at school, were unmoved. I don't know it was because they were boys, but I have a feeling that Hardy's books caught the temperature of the times, and the 80s were less sympathetic to his work.
Anyway, the TV series. This production was a typical 2000s BBC costume drama; high production values, great care lavished on sets and costunes, a lush musical score and easy-on-the-eye actors. This can have mixed results - for example, Gemma Arterton as Tess looked perfect, very much as I'd always imagined Tess; tall, beautiful and with a slightly other-worldly appearance, a bit apart from everyone else, with a faraway look in her eyes. The actor who played Angel though, was wrong, wrong, wrong. He looked far too young, and had a petulant look on his face, as if he was always about to stick his lower lip out. He was also too small. I'd always seen Angel as a big man; fair-haired, yes and a chilly character, but he was a man of weight and substance. This version was a callow adolescent. But maybe it's my vision that's wrong.
Anyway I enjoyed the first 3 episodes, but the final one dragged, and although I dutifully watched it through to the end, I'd lost interest long before. Tess's fate left me unmoved, and I'm not sure why. I suppose I just didn't believe a word of it. The thing with Hardy is that you do believe it when you're reading it, however preposterous the story.
Anyway, time to have another look at the Polanski, I think.
Monday, 29 September 2008
Theme Time Radio Hour
For quite a while now I've tuned in to Radio 2 at 11.00pm every Thursday night for Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. As I've said before, Dylan's part of my life and I grew up with his music, so it's a huge and unexpected treat to hear his voice talking to me every week.
One would never have imagined in the 60s that he'd end up as a DJ, especially one playing old stuff from the 30s, 40s and 50s, though actually it's clear that he's a musical scholar of enormous erudition. He often talks at some length, reciting poetry or excerpts from Shakespeare. His language is like his songs, and his book, Chronicles is the same, freewheeling, sometimes random, but highly literate. I gloried in it and look forward to any further volumes, if there are any, with great anticipation.
Sometimes he takes off, and there's more Dylan talking than music which is fine by me. He doesn't actually talk, but speak - there's a big difference. I could never have imagined that he would go down this road, and of course he still makes music. I haven't heard any of his recent stuff, and some of it is, by all accounts, excellent. I've always deliberately steered clear of everything post-John Wesley Harding, but I'm thinking that I might have to think again. I did hear Most of the Time by accident recently and loved it.
Anyway, he clearly loves being a DJ and he's uncovered some remarkable, obscure old stuff. I love listening to him and 11.00pm on Thursdays has become a highlight of my week.
One would never have imagined in the 60s that he'd end up as a DJ, especially one playing old stuff from the 30s, 40s and 50s, though actually it's clear that he's a musical scholar of enormous erudition. He often talks at some length, reciting poetry or excerpts from Shakespeare. His language is like his songs, and his book, Chronicles is the same, freewheeling, sometimes random, but highly literate. I gloried in it and look forward to any further volumes, if there are any, with great anticipation.
Sometimes he takes off, and there's more Dylan talking than music which is fine by me. He doesn't actually talk, but speak - there's a big difference. I could never have imagined that he would go down this road, and of course he still makes music. I haven't heard any of his recent stuff, and some of it is, by all accounts, excellent. I've always deliberately steered clear of everything post-John Wesley Harding, but I'm thinking that I might have to think again. I did hear Most of the Time by accident recently and loved it.
Anyway, he clearly loves being a DJ and he's uncovered some remarkable, obscure old stuff. I love listening to him and 11.00pm on Thursdays has become a highlight of my week.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Times and Winds
I loved this film, and after immersing myself in Turkey while reading Snow, I found it fascinating on many levels, but it's the sense of ferment, of tension between a deeply traditional society and the forces of modernisation, which co-exist and sometimes collide with each other.
It's a hard film to describe - it's basically a portrait of the lives of a group of teenagers in an isolated, rural part of Turkey.In spite of the way of life that governs them, something that's been embedded for centuries, there's television, telephones and education. The female schoolteacher doesn't wear a headscarf, unlike the mothers of the children she teaches. She's a force for modernity, as is the television which is always present in the children's often harsh and sppartan home surroundings. One of the boys she teaches has a crush on her, and it's clear she must seem like a goddess to her pupils, whose mothers and sisters labour under the yoke of tradition.
There are scenes of great beauty in this film, helped by Arvo Part's music. I know it isn't to everyone's taste, and it was pretty pervasive, and loud, but it gave the film a seriousness and grandeur which it deserved. A small masterpiece.
It's a hard film to describe - it's basically a portrait of the lives of a group of teenagers in an isolated, rural part of Turkey.In spite of the way of life that governs them, something that's been embedded for centuries, there's television, telephones and education. The female schoolteacher doesn't wear a headscarf, unlike the mothers of the children she teaches. She's a force for modernity, as is the television which is always present in the children's often harsh and sppartan home surroundings. One of the boys she teaches has a crush on her, and it's clear she must seem like a goddess to her pupils, whose mothers and sisters labour under the yoke of tradition.
There are scenes of great beauty in this film, helped by Arvo Part's music. I know it isn't to everyone's taste, and it was pretty pervasive, and loud, but it gave the film a seriousness and grandeur which it deserved. A small masterpiece.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
The Duchess
I went to see this with my daughter - we knew that no-one else in our male-orientated family would want to see it, but we both enjoy costume dramas, and we enjoyed it very much. It's funny how they've acquired such a bad reputation, but those who like them love them.
It had received some bad reviews in the usual predictable quarters - Peter Bradshaw, I mean you, though he wasn't the only one, practically every reviewer sneered at it. But my hero, Mark Kermode on FiveLive, came to the rescue. He's usually highly critical of costume films, and has savaged Keira Knightley (who played the eponymous duchess) in the past, but he approved of the film, so that in itself intrigued me.
I knew a bit about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire as I'd read the biography by Amanda Foreman on which the film was based. It's an excellent book, and the Gainsborough portrait of her on the cover shows a character who looks as if she has a wicked sense of humour - she's not conventionally pretty, but she's intelligent-looking and feisty and it's easy to see how Foreman, as she confesses in her introduction, fell in love with her subject. It's very much a scholarly work, with footnotes and an index, but it's compulsive reading.
Georgiana's story is amazing, even by 18-century standards. Her arranged marriage at the age of 17, to the stratospherically wealthy, but emotionally cold and distant Duke of Devonshire gave her the chance to shine in society and she grabbed that opportunity with both hands, becoming a leading light in the ton as it was called. Her downfall came when she committed the crime of producing daughters, which distanced her even further from the Duke, and even though she eventually produced a son, by then she'd had a passionate affair with the man who eventually became Lord Grey (famous for introducing the famous Great Reform Act in 1832 - an event and date engraved on my memory from school history lessons).
You couldn't invent her life; and the film doesn't give us the half of it. That's its main failing, I think, as it gives us a too-happy ending. Nevertheless, it gives us a convincing picture of the period and I have to say that Knightley gives a sterling performance. I have a feeling she's going to become a Helen Mirren-like national acting treasure - her choice of roles is increasingly interesting, though she needs to stop making those hideous Pirates of the Caribbean films. I look forward to following her career.
It had received some bad reviews in the usual predictable quarters - Peter Bradshaw, I mean you, though he wasn't the only one, practically every reviewer sneered at it. But my hero, Mark Kermode on FiveLive, came to the rescue. He's usually highly critical of costume films, and has savaged Keira Knightley (who played the eponymous duchess) in the past, but he approved of the film, so that in itself intrigued me.
I knew a bit about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire as I'd read the biography by Amanda Foreman on which the film was based. It's an excellent book, and the Gainsborough portrait of her on the cover shows a character who looks as if she has a wicked sense of humour - she's not conventionally pretty, but she's intelligent-looking and feisty and it's easy to see how Foreman, as she confesses in her introduction, fell in love with her subject. It's very much a scholarly work, with footnotes and an index, but it's compulsive reading.
Georgiana's story is amazing, even by 18-century standards. Her arranged marriage at the age of 17, to the stratospherically wealthy, but emotionally cold and distant Duke of Devonshire gave her the chance to shine in society and she grabbed that opportunity with both hands, becoming a leading light in the ton as it was called. Her downfall came when she committed the crime of producing daughters, which distanced her even further from the Duke, and even though she eventually produced a son, by then she'd had a passionate affair with the man who eventually became Lord Grey (famous for introducing the famous Great Reform Act in 1832 - an event and date engraved on my memory from school history lessons).
You couldn't invent her life; and the film doesn't give us the half of it. That's its main failing, I think, as it gives us a too-happy ending. Nevertheless, it gives us a convincing picture of the period and I have to say that Knightley gives a sterling performance. I have a feeling she's going to become a Helen Mirren-like national acting treasure - her choice of roles is increasingly interesting, though she needs to stop making those hideous Pirates of the Caribbean films. I look forward to following her career.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
The Orphanage
I'd meant to see this at the cinema when it was released but it didn't happen, so as soon as it came out on DVD I put it at the top of my rental list. I had to wait a while before it came, and it was pretty near the top of the DVD charts for quite a while, so it was obviously extremely popular. Anyway it finally arrived, so I had a real sense of anticipation.
Was it worth it? I watched it twice, as I was pretty sleepy the first time and knew that I may have missed the odd little chunk or two. Also I wanted to see it again to make sure that my feelings of flatness after seeing it were justified.
It's beautifully filmed, but where have I seen that look? It's the greyish-blue tinge to everything, and the creepy, country-house setting, very different from the National Trust look of many British films. We first saw it in The Others a few years ago, a ghost story set in the Channel Islands during the 1940s and it set the template. I thought it was excellent - scary children, weird, ghostly sets, and Nicole Kidman, brittle, fragile and heartbreaking, producing one of her best performances and Alejandro Amenabar proved himself an extremely accomplished director. Certainly Spanish cinema has produced some extraordinarily original films in recent years, and The Others, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labrynth have been prime examples.
The Orphanage is in this vein but, unlike those films it didn't convince. I'm happy to completely suspend disbelief when watching films, but the film has to make you do it, and this one didn't.
It obviously succeeded with many, and the reviews were adulatory, so maybe it's just me.
The Orphanage's narrative doesn't compel. It lacked narrative drive and structure and, although it was well acted and beautifully filmed, it was all over the place. The basic story, that of the childless couple attempting to set up a home for children with severe disabilities in the country house in which the wife, herself an orphan, had been brought up. The house had been an old-fashioned orphanage and the couple had now bought it. Their adopted son begins to collect imaginary friends, who turn out to be the ghosts of his mother's playmates, who were murdered....and so it went on. I've forgotten who the murderer was.
An implausible scenario, which doesn't disqualify it by any means; after all, the same might be said for many of the greatest films. But I didn't believe a word of it and the ending was ludicrous and had a tacked-on feel. It's one of those films where I have a blind spot - it doesn't happen too often, but occasionally I find myself out of step. Oh well......
Was it worth it? I watched it twice, as I was pretty sleepy the first time and knew that I may have missed the odd little chunk or two. Also I wanted to see it again to make sure that my feelings of flatness after seeing it were justified.
It's beautifully filmed, but where have I seen that look? It's the greyish-blue tinge to everything, and the creepy, country-house setting, very different from the National Trust look of many British films. We first saw it in The Others a few years ago, a ghost story set in the Channel Islands during the 1940s and it set the template. I thought it was excellent - scary children, weird, ghostly sets, and Nicole Kidman, brittle, fragile and heartbreaking, producing one of her best performances and Alejandro Amenabar proved himself an extremely accomplished director. Certainly Spanish cinema has produced some extraordinarily original films in recent years, and The Others, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labrynth have been prime examples.
The Orphanage is in this vein but, unlike those films it didn't convince. I'm happy to completely suspend disbelief when watching films, but the film has to make you do it, and this one didn't.
It obviously succeeded with many, and the reviews were adulatory, so maybe it's just me.
The Orphanage's narrative doesn't compel. It lacked narrative drive and structure and, although it was well acted and beautifully filmed, it was all over the place. The basic story, that of the childless couple attempting to set up a home for children with severe disabilities in the country house in which the wife, herself an orphan, had been brought up. The house had been an old-fashioned orphanage and the couple had now bought it. Their adopted son begins to collect imaginary friends, who turn out to be the ghosts of his mother's playmates, who were murdered....and so it went on. I've forgotten who the murderer was.
An implausible scenario, which doesn't disqualify it by any means; after all, the same might be said for many of the greatest films. But I didn't believe a word of it and the ending was ludicrous and had a tacked-on feel. It's one of those films where I have a blind spot - it doesn't happen too often, but occasionally I find myself out of step. Oh well......
Thursday, 28 August 2008
David Miliband (5)
It's been a while since I've written about Miliband, and he was initially pretty quiet after he became Foreign Secretary, but he's been in the news quite a bit recently, especially since the Russia/Georgia stand-off started.
David Hearst in the Guardian today was damning, deriding him as 'blissfully unaware' of the history between the two countries, and accusing him of 'stepping blindly and foolishly into a minefield' and 'making vacuous commitments to a country he knows nothing about, and which he is in no position to honour'.
The blogger AppallingStrangeness is brutal, asking 'Does anyone else feel slightly embarrassed when they read about David Miliband prancing about on the international stage?' And goes on to describe him as having the 'general charisma of a snail crushed underfoot'. One of the most important jobs in government has been given to someone 'the political equivalent of Adrian Mole'.
Certainly he's seemed clearly out of his depth, and of course it's the first time he's been tested in a significant international situation of geopolitical importance. He's persistently labelled a 'Blairite' and therefore someone with leadership ambitions and he was suspected of mounting a leadership challenge recently after an article he wrote for the Guardian which didn't even mention Brown. With the undoubted forthcoming demise of the Government in the next couple of years it's difficult to see where he goes next - down with the sinking ship, I suspect. Whatever happens, he's dead meat, though young enough to rise from the ashes in the distant future, though in what form - who can say?
David Hearst in the Guardian today was damning, deriding him as 'blissfully unaware' of the history between the two countries, and accusing him of 'stepping blindly and foolishly into a minefield' and 'making vacuous commitments to a country he knows nothing about, and which he is in no position to honour'.
The blogger AppallingStrangeness is brutal, asking 'Does anyone else feel slightly embarrassed when they read about David Miliband prancing about on the international stage?' And goes on to describe him as having the 'general charisma of a snail crushed underfoot'. One of the most important jobs in government has been given to someone 'the political equivalent of Adrian Mole'.
Certainly he's seemed clearly out of his depth, and of course it's the first time he's been tested in a significant international situation of geopolitical importance. He's persistently labelled a 'Blairite' and therefore someone with leadership ambitions and he was suspected of mounting a leadership challenge recently after an article he wrote for the Guardian which didn't even mention Brown. With the undoubted forthcoming demise of the Government in the next couple of years it's difficult to see where he goes next - down with the sinking ship, I suspect. Whatever happens, he's dead meat, though young enough to rise from the ashes in the distant future, though in what form - who can say?
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